


Father, Son, and Holy Hell

by xSheepie



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 22:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13690728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xSheepie/pseuds/xSheepie
Summary: How House came to hate his father. John's a shitty father.Mainly the ice bath storyline. Past child abuse, implied trauma.





	Father, Son, and Holy Hell

John was in the military so we were always moving. I’d settle in, learn my classmates names’ and where the best places to ride my bike were and then my father would come home after a long day and announce he was getting reassigned to a new base. Despite his absence from home most nights, he was strict in the way absent fathers didn’t have a right to be. His aim was to raise me the way he had been raised, to raise me to become him.

After a while I stopped unpacking. I didn’t put my clothes in my dresser, just lived out of my suitcase. My bed stayed dismantled and I slept on my mattress on the floor. I didn’t bother to remember my teachers name and I was rude on the playground because I’d be gone before I’d have to face consequences. My mother would tisk disapprovingly but couldn’t handle me. I heard her crying in her room to many times- mostly his fault… sometimes mine.

I blamed my dad for my miserable childhood and my mom for not stopping him, not being stronger. I started to defy him in small ways, at first. I’d come to dinner a couple minutes late and I wouldn’t ask for help on my school work. I’d leave my toys and dirty socks around the house and blast my music from my room, loud and obnoxious. He, of course, punished me. When I was late for dinner he’d make me go hungry in my room. When I ignored my chores and, and byproduct, my mother he’d leave me outside for the night, no matter the weather.

Hate was a funny thing to understand at a young age, but I knew it clinically. It wasn’t quick to come and go, but a fire that stayed burning. I tended it religiously. When he drank, came home late, snapped at my mother, I added to it. It consumed me. When he taught me to shoot a gun, I always had a target. When he hit her, I kept the sound of flesh hitting flesh on a loop in my head. When he forced me into the ice bath… the fire was drowned.

It sputtered out instantly. My skin flushed and then quickly lost color, my teeth were chattering so hard I thought they’d crack, my nails skidded off the walls of the tub uselessly. John kept me pinned in the tub filled with icy water, one hand on my shoulder, the other on my upper thigh. He was talking, _teaching me a lesson,_ but the words didn’t make sense at the time. Nothing made sense. My whole body was on fire. I’d die for sure.

All of a sudden the hands were gone. My mother was shrieking in the hallway.

“You let him up this second! Are you trying to kill the boy?”

John scowled and stormed into the hallway to deal with her. “He has to learn, Blythe. He’s a wild child.”

I clamber out of the tub and wrap myself in a towel. My body is numb, the shouting peaks and dies as the front door is slammed. My mother comes rushing back in and pulls me to my feet. I can’t look at her.

“Oh Greg, oh baby…” She leads me to my room were she helps me out of my sodden underwear and into dry clothes. I’m still dazed as she tucks me into bed and piles blankets on me, a space heater plugged in by the bed. I don’t realize I’m crying until I feel her warm hands on my face, brushing them away as I shake.

Hate was a funny thing to understand at twelve. It wasn’t exactly rage, fire. Sometimes it was nothing at all. I understood it completely then. Those in power would always abuse those who were weak. I’d been weak, made myself an easy target for John. John- that man- wasn’t my father, couldn’t be. I refused to believe it. If hate was sinful, I would go to Hell. No, Hell wasn't firey. I’d been to Hell and damn, was it cold.


End file.
